Thursday, May 31, 2012

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN



Carole Mallory

Actress, Professor, Flim Critic, malloryhollywoodeast.blogspot.com
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Review: A Fearless Snow White and the Huntsman

Posted: 05/09/2005 3:00 am
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Hail to the Queen, Kristen Stewart, who captures your heart in Snow White and the Huntsman. In Joan of Arc style, she steals the crown away from Charlize Theron. No easy feat. Oh, Theron as the evil queen is mighty good at playing evil alright, but she is outdone by the raw sincerity of Stewart. With Stewart's thin lips slightly parted and mist perpetually in her bluest of blue eyes, Stewart as Snow White steals your heart and this film. Her gaze is steadfast when starring down a monster in the woods or when taking on The Evil Queen or when helping a dwarf who is dying to take his last breath to ease his journey to the next land.
Most of us know the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, yet somehow I was on the edge of my seat at times wondering what would happen to this delicate personification of innocence, Snow White. It is her gaze of innocence and pure longing that grabs your emotions and holds you in her spell. She ever so much reminds me of a young Joan Fontaine and the helplessness of Rebecca.
The film begins with Snow White's mother (Liberty Ross) giving her and her friend, Prince William (Sam Clafin) ,who is the son of a nobleman, the happiest of castles for a home when suddenly her mother dies. King Magnus (Noah Huntley)...is distraught and overcome by loneliness then one day in the forest he comes upon a beautiful damsel in distress dressed in rags, but who has the most stunning face surrounded by golden hair. Ravenna (Theron) possesses powers of witchcraft and puts the King under her spell. Within 24 hours he marries her and on their wedding night she stabs him in his heart as she says," Men use women, and when they are finished, they toss us aside once our youth is gone. First I'll take your life, and then I'll love you."
After murdering the King, she talks to a gold mirror-like symbol on the wall, stares into it and asks who is the fairest of them all. The mirror morphs into liquid and a figure taller than Ravenna says, 'You, my lady. Take the heart of a young woman in your hand and you will never age."
"Where is one?" Ravenna cries as she eats the raw hearts of young crows.
After her father's murder, Snow White is imprisoned in the top of the castle. Prince Williamis able to escape. Alone Ravenna enlists the help of her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) to tend house and one of his duties is to supply young girls to the Evil Queen so that she can steal their youth by sucking it out of them.
This theme of sustaining youth through taking lives of young women is not new. Neither is the Grimm fairy tale Snow White. But this film is a tour de force in its execution.
Years pass and one day the gold symbol- like-mirror tells Ravenna that there is one who could be a threat to her immortality. Snow White. Finn tries to bring her to Ravenna, but Snow White escapes. Ravenna hires a strapping Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to find Snow White so that she can take her heart out and hold it in her hand and live forever.
And so the fairy tale goes. The Huntsman falls for Snow White as he sees her fight for her life in a bleak woods filled with terrifying creatures. Meanwhile Ravenna has sent Finn to find her. There is an interlude where Snow White and the Huntsman are taken in by a village of women who scar their faces so their beauty is not a threat to the Queen. Finally Snow White meets the Seven Dwarfs which in actuality are eight--Bob Hoskins, Ian Mc Shane, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones, Johnny Harris, Brian Gleeson. These dwarfs help to protect her and take her to the Enchanted Forest. The poison apple is given to Snow White by Prince William, but who is really Ravenna who has cast a spell over the body of William and morphed into his image.
The rest of the Fairy Tale is common knowledge. The mounting use of special effects makes a slow build and does not bombard you from the onset of the film. The forest is black in nature as is the entire film wherever it can be; therefore, drops of red as in blood and a rose signifying hope stand out and register viscerally. The costumes all are tasteful and done so that the focus is on Ravenna and Snow White whose chain mail outfit in the end shines triumphantly and brightly as her spirit.
While this is a dark, depressing view of the Grimm Fairy Tale which was never meant to be a laughing matter, this movie is authentic in spirit to the original intentions of this story. Only by showing the bleakness can the sunshine upon this diabolical tragedy. I recommend this film passionately. It is masterful in art direction and well acted. Its championship direction by a first time director, Rupert Sanders, and bold writing by Evan Daughtery, John Lee Hancock, Hossein Amini, take a feminist tale and keep it a feminist tale. The Huntsman remains an admirer of Snow White and they go off into the sunset with mutual respect as friends. At its conclusion, the audience applauded and I joined them.
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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

HEMINGWAY AND GELLHORN SUCCEEDS

HEMINGWAY AND GELLHORN SUCCEEDS

"I'm not dead you f**k," Martha Gellhorn says after hanging up on her editor. She has just told him, “I can't wait for you to grow a pair of balls." He is not treating this skilled war correspondent who has covered the Spanish Civil War, China, and D-Day with the respect she has earned. Previously when being interviewed, Gellhorn was asked if she sees herself as owing a debt to Hemingway and says, "I do not see myself as a footnote to someone else's life." This movie proves that, indeed, she is not. 
In the opening scene Hemingway introduces Gellhorn as a best-selling author. "She's gunning for both of us", Hemingway says as he introduces her to Dos Passos. Throughout this biopic, Gellhorn trumps Hemingway in efforts to smother her independence till the end.
This spellbinding story--a-passionate love affair -- is breathtaking. Gellhorn stands up to a jealous Hemingway as only a writer can to a writer. Played by Nicole Kidman who has all the moves right and ages believably, but it isn't just the makeup. Kidman has been through her share of tough, domineering men and brings her experiences to play against a sensual, commanding Clive Owen. His portrayal of Hemingway is flawless. He shows the passion and bravado of an oversized ego. Their love scenes are smoldering. Believable. Just like a giant sized ego in the form of a famous writer takes a woman and makes love to her. Close to rape it is, but escapes rape when Gellhorn realizes Hemingway is motivated by fear. She has empathy for him. She is able to love him because she understands his fear forces him to have a need to be in control. Until the in 1945 when her empathy turns to anger as he tries to destroy her. When in Hemingway's fit of jealousy he takes her publication, her employer Colliers, from her and makes it his own. He covers the European invasion for Colliers and her magazine no longer needs her. The child that he is takes her employment from her to pay her back for having deserted him for accepting an assignment to Finland without him.  When she objects and prepares to leave him, he slaps her.  She now refuses his plea to return to the role of Mrs. Hemingway, as his third wife. By now he has taken up with a compliant Mary, the soon to be the next Mrs. Hemingway,
The biopic opens with Gellhorn saying, "I always thought sex was something you withheld. Love? I'm a war correspondent. Of course there are wars and there are wars. I was in a café in Key West when I met him. I remember thinking, "Who is that large dirty man in those disgusting clothes, and then I said to him, 'I've never kissed a fish."
"What's your name, sophisticated? If we have a drink am I gonna have to fight your husband?"
"I'm with my mother and my brother."
"What do you do, sophisticated?"
"I see the world. I just returned from Berlin."
"Let's see the reviews...every writer keeps one review," Hemingway says and Gellhorn pulls out a review mentioning Eleanor Roosevelt. "The trick is writing the way people talk. Most people never listen," Hemingway says. During the entire film he writes standing as he pounds a typewriter. This bizarre image haunts. About writing, he says to Gellhorn who is suffering from writer's block, "There's nothing to writing. All you do it sit down at your typewriter and type. The important thing about writers is to tell a good story. The best ones are all liars."
During the first time he ravishes Gelhorn, she asks, "Is this what you want?"
"It's what I need," he replies spreading her legs.
"I knew when I fell in love with him the exact moment," she says. "And why... It was his words. Whatever private thing, he uttered to a dying man on the field." The finest scenes are the love scenes. So real. So erotic
Robert Duvall, Parker Posey, David Straithairn, Tony Shalhoub, Peter Coyote, Brooke Adams, Diane Baker all have smaller parts, but they all complete a wonderful production.
."Ladies and gentlemen I am a writer and the last thing a writer should do is talk, "Hemingway says introducing a film, The Spanish Earth that he filmed during the war. When Gellhorn speaks and gets a standing ovation, director Philip Kaufman shows  the mounting jealousy in Hemingway.
Gellhorn smokes and drinks along with Hemingway and has a mouth that matches him verb to verb. The Spanish war is shot in sepia tones and black and white images that fade into color. The cinematography is top notch and costumes reflect the era and splendor of Cuba. Jerry Stahl and Barbara Turner do a magnificent job capturing the dialogue that is peppered with Hemingway's famous phrases.  Bravo for director Kaufman (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) who had volumes of material to comb through to create this champion, dynamic biopic.
Throughout the film, I was reminded of the similarities of the competitive spirit,  machismo and ego of Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway.
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Monday, May 28, 2012

FOR GREATER GLORY



Carole Mallory

Actress, Professor, Flim Critic, malloryhollywoodeast.blogspot.com
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Review: For Greater Glory Shows a Glorious Mexico

Posted: 05/28/2012 2:27 pm
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Mexico in its splendor fighting for freedom: The Cristero War (1926 -29). Who knows of this period of history when the Mexican Government attempted to secularize the country?
For Greater Glory is a beautiful film that tells the story of a small boy who stands up to the tyrants of his government. It tells the story of men who do not particularly have religious beliefs fighting for people who are Catholics. It tells the story of believers who bear arms against politicians, who want to suppress freedom resulting in a people's revolt that rocked the 20th Century.
The film begins with Peter O'Toole playing a priest who is murdered by the Mexican government. A little boy who is about to be O'Toole's altar boy witnesses the brutal slaying and vows to seek justice for his beloved priest. This is the first attack of the government on the people to repress freedom to worship. Mexicans begin to fight all over Mexico, but are disorganized. They need a leader.
Enter Andy Garcia as Enrique Gorostieta Velarde who becomes the reluctant hero who is impassioned and leads Mexico to unity and freedom. Garcia is believable as the clever staunch general who knows what the enemy has plotted until one night when he is taken off guard. Garcia's wife is Eva Longoria who stands by her man. Cuban Oscar Isaac as Victoriano (el Catorce) Ramírez López is splendid as he challenges Garcia's authority only to concede when he realizes his mistake. Santiago Cabrera portrays the sympathetic Father Vega with caring and a surprising sensuality that adds depth to his portrait,
The music is a problem as director Dean Wright uses it as punctuation. Too much Sturm und Drang. Unfortunately the film would have had a greater impact with a more subtle sound track.
But if you do not know your Mexican history, For Greater Glory will fill in some gaps, and though it is a bit too long, it makes up for this with the scenic vistas and mountainous countryside that only Mexico has in its Rolodex.
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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Men in Black 3 Works!



Carole Mallory

Actress; Journalist; Flim Critic, malloryhollywoodeast,blogspot.com
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Review: MIB3 Works

Posted: 05/23/2012 9:10 am
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I didn't want to see a rehash of the Men in Blackseries and how wrong I was. MIB3 is another winner. Barry Sonnenfeld has directed this threequil with panache. Never once does he drop the suspense. The curiosity. One bizarre creature after the other assaults you, but each one has a purpose to the screenplay. Special effects triumph. The story is basic and a bit familiar. A time travel saga, again, but Sonnenfeld pulls it off with style and aplomb. Rick Baker's creatures never appear gimmicky, but each has its own special visual kind of terror. This story is unique.
Agents Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) and Jay (Will Smith) are members of a top secret organization that monitors and polices alien activity on Earth. They find themselves in the middle of an intergalactic terrorist plot. In order to prevent worlds from colliding, the MIB must find the terrorist behind this plot and save the Earth.
Time travel is employed to save the Universe and agent J (Will Smith) is our man in Manhattan to do it. Tongue in every cheek. Agent K has been murdered by an alien criminal, Boris the Animal, played by Jermaine Clement with pure terror. He has sockets for eyes, one arm and a voice that sounds like a malfunctioning exhaust. In the opening sequence, Boris escapes from his maximum security prison on the moon intent on murdering Agent K.
Agent J must travel back in time to 1969 to rescue Agent K and the Universe from Boris's diabolical plot (a young Agent J, played with amazing accuracy by Josh Brolin who mimics Tommy Lee Jones' austere yet humorous delivery). There is a space launch at Cape Canaveral and Agent J must place an object on top of the rocket just prior to launch or worlds will collide.
In MIB headquarters when the film begins, we meet a radiant and more beautiful than ever Agent O played with precision by the deft Emma Thompson. When we go back in time to 1969 Agent O becomes the stunning Alice Eve.
What did not work was a scene in The Factory in Manhattan based on Warhol's 1969 establishment with aliens partout. Warhol is poorly portrayed by Bill Hader. But one mediocre scene could not run this movie into oblivion. What did work was the opening scene in a Chinese restaurant with bizarre fish-like monsters which creates a smash-up beginning for this odd, endearing film.
Buckle your seat belt. This is one bumpy, but enjoyable ride and leads right into a sequel. Get ready for MIB4 as soon as writers Lowell Cunningham, the comic genius, and Elan Cohen, David Koepp, Jeff Nathanson and Michael Soccio return to this Universe with their laptops and go to work. Be prepared for another alien invasion. I warned you.
 
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